"You'll get used to it." They were clanking to the landing of the floor
below and Ben, without the slightest compunction, pushed boldly into the
door of the apartment there. The lock showed signs of being forced. "Oh,
I broke it in," Ben answered Murray's unspoken query. "Thought I might
be able to help, but it was no use. That fat woman lives here--you know,
the one that used to sniff at us in the elevator when we went on a
bender."
Any qualms Murray felt about looking on the naked face of death were
perfunctorily laid to rest as the scientist led him into the room
occupied by the late lady of the elevator. She lay solidly in her bed
amidst the meretricious gorgeousness she had affected in life, the
weight of her body sagging the bed grotesquely toward its center.
Instead of the clean-running mechanical devices which marked the
appearance of the two friends, she was nothing but lumps and bumps, a
bulging, ugly cast-iron statue, distending the cheap "silk" nightdress.
"See?" said Ben, calmly. "The transmutation wasn't complete. Prob'ly
didn't get it as strong as we did. Look, the window's closed. This will
be a warning to people who are afraid to sleep in a draft. Come along."
Murray lingered. "Isn't there anything ... we can do?" He felt
uncomfortably responsible.
"Not a thing," said Ben, cheerfully. "All she's good for is to stand
in the park and look at. Come along. We've got a lot of stairs to go
down ... we're too noisy; need a good bath in non-rusting oil."
They reached the street level after an æon of stairs, Ben leading the
way to the corner drug store. All about them was a complete silence;
fleecy white clouds sailed across the little ribbon of blue visible at
the top of the canyon of the New York city street.
"Lucky it's a nice day," said Ben, boldly stepping into the drug store,
the door of which stood open. "We'll have to figure out this rainy
weather thing. It's going to present a problem."
Within, the drug store presented the same phenomena of arrested
development as the apartment of the fat lady at the forty-seventh story.
A cast-iron statue of a soda-clerk leaned on the fountain in an attitude
of studied negligence, its lips parted as though addressing some words
to the equally metallic figure of a girl which faced him across the
counter. On her steely features was a film of power, and the caked and
curling remains of her lip stick showed she had been there for some
time.
"By the way," Murray asked, "have you any idea what day it is, and how
long we were--under the influence? It couldn't have happened overnight."
"Why not?" came Ben's voice from the rear of the store. "Say, old dear,
rummage around some of those drawers for rubber gloves, will you? I'd
hate to run into high voltage with this outfit."
"Ah, here they are," came from Ben finally. "Well, let's go."
"What's the next step?" They were outside.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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